Today we needed to drive about 110 miles NORTH. I picked a state highway, which was a pleasant drive, two lane, but little traffic. For the first 40 or 50 miles my DH tried to convince me I was driving SOUTH. I am so unsure of directions that I was afraid he might be right, even though the GPS showed us happily following the pink line north and we were getting closer and closer to our goal. Even the highway signs said "Highway 59 NORTH", but still I had a hard time not thinking he might be right! I was so surprised when I asked where the sun would be in the morning and my DH knew that would be EAST and in fact the sun was to our right, so we must be heading NORTH he was insistant I didn't know what I was doing. Do you now have to do things of which you would normally be unsure and then have your DS make you question you are doing the right thing? It was exhausting to me, that's for sure!
And one of my husband's chronic beliefs is that he knows everyone's business better than they do. I used to think that it was a pre-dementia core belief that got really annoying once he got dementia. But now that I've been reading the stuff Sunshyne's Cardiologist contacts have been sending to us, I am beginning to think that there was a long early dementia period between my husband's two "events" and that thinking that he is right and everyone else is wrong was a symptom of early dementia.
And yes, being told you are wrong all the time makes doing new things much harder. But in his reality YOU are the person with the problem. That seems to be a given for all of our LOs. It can't be them, so it has to be us.
Just this morning my DH couldn't find his soap in his bathroom. He insisted it had been removed from his sink. I stepped into the bathroom and showed him that it remained on the sink. He insisted that I had brought it with me into the bathroom! Hadn't been there before. I don't believe my DH has been wrong about anything in years.... Just one more thing that is difficult to get used to.
Gosh, when i think about this-my DH and I flew all over the place in his plane, he had logged over 7500hr as a pilot. i also took my lessons but never soloed..just needed to be able to land the sucker if i had to!:) he was instrumented rated, and now looking back that AD could have affected him alot during those trips i am so glad he trusted the instruments during bad weather and not his own judgement. i think we were very lucky there at the end of his flying days...divvi
My husband also has periods of not being able to "see" something that is right in front of him. At one time I thought he was just being mean and nasty, but I've found that as a symptom of dementia. It has a name, but I'm having problems remembering it. <grin>
Of course you had to have brought it with you. It wasn't there and now it is. Of course you have to be lying about it being there before. Of course it is YOU who is crazy. There is nothing wrong with him, so you must be the person with the problem. Of course.
And they wonder why caregivers collapse. Actually "they" don't lack understanding. It has amazed me just how much more "they" have understood about what is going on in my house than I expected. The Alzheimer's Association is just as worried about the caregivers as the patients. There isn't much they can do for the patients, but they can keep the caregivers from dying, and they are trying to do that. The local Assistant District Attorney totally understood my situation, and is worried that my husband is more violent than he actually is. That policeman must have been scared ##@%&$ over my situation and passed it on.
I'm having enough trouble remembering common words, it's a miracle when I can remember something technical... :-)
There is a version of AD called "visual variant AD (VVAD)" in which visual agnosia is the first presenting symptom. Once I learned about it, the more I thought about my husband's behavior, the more convinced I became that he is a classical case of VVAD.
Another symptom that applies to my DH. Not seeing anything that is in front of him!!!!! Yesterday I was in the shower and he came and asked if we had any paper plates. Of course they were where they have always been in the pantry for the past 6 years. When I came out I asked him if he had found them...answer "No I just used a regular plate and washed it". I didn't think to check if he had put back where it belonged. LOL
My husband had always had a wonderful sense of direction. He knew is north and south, east and west. As he progressed with the disease, his understanding of that also disappeared. He used to tell me that I was going the wrong way and be absolutely convinced of it. I knew it was the disease talking but as I had always relied on his direction sense, it was very difficult to stand firm and believe that I was truly going the right way.
They can talk so convincingly in the earlier stages, it makes it hard to say "no that is not right" or anything different from what they say.
I finally learned to say "I am driving and as the driver, it is my choice on how we get there. When you drive, you can make those choices.
The funny part is that when we would arrive at our destinations, he would comment on how well I did getting us there.......
I have had the same experience. Driving to a new and distant doctor appointment for my husband, he insisted the GPS was wrong. I knew what direction I was headed and yet he insisted I was going the wrong way. I trusted my GPS lady, she has never let me down. We arrived where we needed to be and my husband said nothing. This disease causes so many subtle changes that do question ones own sanity at times.